Page 100 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

B—

Remember being a kid when anything felt possible? We discovered new worlds in every book we read and magic was all around us. This book is like that. Childish wonder. Feeling like the world is at your fingertips.

Needless to say, that’s how you make me feel.

I’ll text you from Tennessee?

Yours,

Cole

A few hours later, Cole sent Brennan a photo. The book Brennan had given him, splayed out on what appeared to be an airplane tray. A hand held open the pages to where a sticky note was tucked like a bookmark, a string of lines highlighted.

The caption said, “accidentally read the whole book on the .”

Brennan didn’t need to look at the picture to know what the book read:

The poem—

Sunlight pouring across your skin, your shadow

flat on the wall.

The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.

You had not expected this,

the bedroom gone white, the astronomical light

pummeling you in a stream of fists.

You raised your hand to your face as if

to hide it, the pink fingers gone gold as the light

streamed straight to the bone,

as if you were the small room closed in glass

with every speck of dust illuminated.

The light is no mystery,

the mystery is that there is something to keep the light

from passing through.

And below it, a note. Brennan had annotations throughout the book, but this was the one meant for Cole:

Yeah, I know, you’re probably laughing because this is that gay poet Tumblr loves, but don’t dismiss it! The gays love him for a reason. His words are rambling and panicky, desperate and jarring. It’s how my brain feels half the time. And then you get to this poem, and it’s different. Softer.

It reminds me of that day. You know the one. Or maybe, just you, in general, and how all the noise goes out of my head when we’re together.

The Waffle Den was a rare kind of quiet the night before Brennan was headed home for break, so Brennan read Cole’s tattered copy ofFablehavenover his nth cup of coffee to the sound of the waitress’s phone dinging and trilling with some game while the cook hummed and scraped the griddle.

The bell over the door jingled for a newcomer as Brennan flipped the page. The book was for a younger audience and had the magical escapism Cole promised, but more importantly, Cole loved it. Brennan read it with the reverence of something that held great secrets, because for all he knew, it did.

“Right-i-o, I’m gonna need three orders of the Deluxe Den combo, to go, and as much orange juice as a young man such as myself can reasonably carry.”